A1C ~ 6.5

I met with my Endo today for my 4 month appointment and review. My latest A1C has come back at 6.5, which is down from 7.1 when I last saw her in late September.

Don't get too excited for me yet. I made that mistake already today. Looks fantastic on paper, I know. But like everything else related to diabetes, everything isn't always as it seems.

At first I was ecstatic to see this number as I had been having a bit of a roller coaster ride for the first 2 months since my last appointment. You may remember me saying here that I was having a lot of high blood sugars between meals and after fasting overnight. I hoped that physical activity might keep these highs in line, but I ended up having to increase my basal insulin. I was given instructions to tweak it bit by bit until I fell within range again. I was previously taking 10 units a day and am now up to 25 units. Apparently this is too much too fast and I got a little trigger happy with my insulin pen. Although it has resolved my between meal highs, I am now running a little too low in other areas. My typical morning bg is around 4.7 - 5.0 or so. At first I knew that for me that may not be a comfortable number as it was a little on the low side, but then I just got used to seeing it and feeling ok so I stuck with it in hopes that I would be able to achieve an A1C under 7.

There I go with striving for a specific number again, rather than doing what is safer for me. So much focus on diabetes control and management is based on that damn A1C. Sometimes I think it would be best to never know what I'm at. I'm a perfectionist so I get a number in my head and do whatever I can to reach that number, even if it means living a little on the edge.

My endo and I have decided that I need to scale back on the basal insulin for the next bit and she is going to review my numbers in about a week and see how I'm doing. I'm dropping down to 20 units and will monitor my pre and post meal bg's.

I'm hoping this trial and error period is relatively short this time around because I love feeling like "I got this!" even though I know diabetes always seems to crush that feeling eventually.

A1C> 7.1

This past Friday I had an appointment with my Endo to go over my 2nd A1C results and to review how things have been going for the last 4 months.

**For my non-D readers, every 3-4 months I see my Endo. About 2 weeks prior I get blood work done which tests my A1C level. This level is a 4 month average of my blood sugars. It's like a diabetes report card. An A1C of 7 is average and is what we typically strive for. Because my body's needs and insulin levels will continue to change throughout my life, these tests and appointments will help me to ensure that my diabetes is being managed well. I've updated my "Glossary" tab to reflect this info.

My first A1C result back in May was a perfect 7.0 . I was more than thrilled with this as it was my first follow up since being diagnosed, back when my A1C was 10.

I was nervous going into this appointment because my blood sugars have been a tad off as of late. I posted back in August (See HERE) about how my blood sugars hadn't really gone back to normal since our little summer vacation. My 30 day average on my meter was sitting at 9.0 mmol/L and I have been having quite a few highs and no lows at all.

Anyway, I was happy to hear that my A1C was 7.1!!! It was a nice relief but I was still worried that without getting on top of these blood sugar issues that my next A1C would be even higher. Over the last 4 months, the first 2 months were REALLY good and I think that's the reason that my A1C wasn't affected as much as I would have expected.

My Endo discussed with me where and when I was noticing the higher blood sugars. I explained that it seemed to mostly be my fasting blood sugars that were most affected, as well as the ones later on in the day.

We came up with two theories for this. The first is the most obvious, and it was that my pancreas was most likely running out of the very little insulin that it had left. That's right non-D folks, us diabetics can/do still make our own insulin however our pancreas does not make enough of it to help balance out our blood sugar levels. As years go by, my pancreas will continue to get more and more lazy which will require me to take more insulin to compensate for this.

Anyway, the second theory has to do with my lack of physical activity as of late. Prior to our vacation at the end of July, I was running 4-5 days a week and was feeling fantastic. I have not been able to get back on track with working out since then. This may be resulting in the higher blood sugar levels.

My Endo suggested that I try and get back on track and see if that does the trick. If not, she suggested I need to try and adjust my basal insulin by 1 unit every week until I get to a level that I'm comfortable with.

October Goal:

Three, 30 minute cardio sessions per week.